


The War

by thecollectiveunconscious



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Titans, Dark Romance, Dubious Consent, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 02:17:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13401348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecollectiveunconscious/pseuds/thecollectiveunconscious
Summary: Through blood and conquest, Captain Levi Ackerman had been a legend of mythic proportion, the war hero of the continent and a cult unto himself. Ten years later, he is a walking corpse, bound and confined within the shackles of the peace he helped to create.Desperate to feel alive, he enters a shadowy world - where combatants live, breathe, and die for the cheap neon glory of the arena.And there, he looks into the face of a grinning demon.





	The War

**ALCOHOL, CIGARETTES, DRUGS, MIND-ALTERATION, SEX**. Levi had tried one, then all, simply out of sheer boredom as the years went by. Secret cellars, hidden gatherings – decadent and beckoning – where the beautiful and wealthy entertained lavishly behind closed doors. The scent was familiar now to Levi – the flow of expensive alcohol and the waft of forbidden scents floating through the air. The candlelight dimly illuminating piles of crystalline powders. Long, languid eyes, curved lips, a slim waist – milky hands extended and sashaying towards a perfumed and curtained bed.

All this was in vain. Try as he might, he was too rudely healthy to lose himself fully to any sort of unnecessary vice. And he’d always hated things that were purely frivolous, designed to delight on the surface and with nothing more. With the monotony of daily life, and never able to fall into any pleasant diversion, he’d felt the life slowing sucking after him year after godawful year. He found it increasingly harder to function in his days when there seemed to be no point. To any of it.

But right now, in the dark alley of the Underground, there was a faint rumbling that came from further below. Inside the decrepit building he stood in front of, he heard muffled shouts, raised voices subdued through thick slabs of wood and concrete. _Something_ was happening here, he was sure of it.

Levi placed his hand on the rusted handle and pushed open the heavy door. It groaned loudly as it slid inwards.

The roaring grew louder as his steps echoed in the long, winding stairwell down below. As he walked, he thought how ironic he was that he should be back in this place. The place he had left with not one glance back, all those years ago.

He was a war hero. Key word – _was_. Had been worshipped and idolized during those hellish years of war, so long ago now – but on rare moments where he closed his eyes and allowed himself to relish the past, he was there again, in the midst of blood and panicked battle and the repetitive blasts of machine gunfire. It had been so constant it had been relegated in his mind to mere background noise.

In the darkest moments of the war, when whole cities had been destroyed and enemy bombers screamed overhead, skies covered in pillaging smoke and ashes, he had been the one constant they rallied around. As the years went on and no conclusion was reached, what had seemed most likely to happen was not defeat via the enemy but backlash from the weakened national army, a veritable house of cards that seemed ready to fold at any moment. The high officials of the government, those sitting in comfort amidst expensive leather and tobacco, panicked, then wildly cast for a hero-figure – something for the men to believe in. This they hit upon in the figure of Captain Levi Ackerman, for despite all their losses, there he still stood, unbroken and as solid as a mountain. A man destined to conquer nations and topple empires, the propaganda machines had hurriedly churned. Achilles reborn. The army corralled around him and he was a hero.

Levi himself hadn’t felt particularly heroic or destined for anything, all the numerous times he was surrounded by the rotting corpses of a thousand soldiers. He’d just done whatever he could to survive, and to make sure as many of his men survived with him as they could.

As the long years of war stretched out, the tide had eventually turned. The republic of Marley had, at last, begun their march forwards, plundering into enemy territories and unleashing the furious fire wrought by years of pain and humiliation. Levi had led the final attack, thoroughly crushing the enemy in their capital. He’d allowed his armies to burn, to pillage and to wreak wide-swathed destruction in their path, looting and plundering as they wanted. It was justified, he had reasoned. The enemy had done the exact same to countless villages of his nation, killed untold numbers of their innocent civilians. The king of Eldia had jumped to his death when he’d spied Levi’s merciless procession cutting through his city, hurling himself through the high windows of the glass spires of his palace.

What had followed was a decade of peace and booming prosperity. Marley, successfully assimilating Eldia, began its reign as the preeminent nation of the world and began to grow rich. For Levi’s heroics, he’d been discharged with honor and handed a high, cushy position in the upper echelons of the newly formed empire. The war had ended ten years ago. In the present day, he was now an olden-day symbol of military might, trotted out occasionally at televised national events where the younger generations didn’t know or care what services he had rendered for their nation. To them, he was yet another anonymous military official who stood, doll-like, blank expression on his face as the military president spoke at length about the glory and prosperity of the unified nation. His chest gleamed with the numerous badges they’d pin on him, and without fail he’d always feel as though he would suffocate under all that unnecessary metal.

Sometimes he wondered why he’d bothered to survive – why he hadn’t just gone down in a blaze of machine gun fire where he wouldn’t have known that to live on afterwards would be to condemn himself to a fate worse than death. Not that he hadn’t tried to enjoy civilian life, not that he hadn’t marched through the normal steps everyone else seemed to take with such ease. Performed the expectations of his job skillfully and dutifully. Politely networked, broke bread and clinked crystal tumblers of mouth-numbing libations with high-ranking members of society, many of whom were supposed to his friends and allies. Friends, he’d snort in privacy. Sooner ready to stick a knife in your back while smiling and slipping a cheque into your pocket. He had a handful of real, true companions from the days of war – Erwin, Hanji, his squad – and he preferred to see even them less and less as the years passed by.

Precisely a year into the new empire, it had been expressed upon him that it would be good for a man of his status to meet a suitable woman, start a family. Never mind that Levi preferred men – that sort of thing didn’t matter. Affairs and marriages of convenience were par for the course in the circles Levi mixed in. Therefore, Levi had ‘dated’ a gauntlet of women, all of them exquisitely beautiful, from well-connected families, and each one more vacuous and depressing than the last. The women would have been more than happy to provide for him what the government wanted, but even for a sham marriage, he hadn’t been able to stick to one long enough without wanting to take his gun and blow his brains out.

Eight years after the war, desperate for anything to hold his interest for even a little while, he’d begun to venture again into the Underground.

Officially, the Underground – the crumbling belly of the capital city where crime had run havoc for generations – was no more. The boom of wealth after the war had dictated that undesirable slums were to have been systematically wiped out, manicured over to form gleaming districts of commerce. But a place like the Underground is never without powerful backers, those who cloak themselves with legitimacy by day and secrecy by night. And so, while the area no longer functioned in its former rakish glory, it was still running in cautious disregard of the laws. The government generally turned a blind eye to its daily transactions; after all, it was this or that politician who most often needed the services of thieves, hit men, dealers, whores. Only secret tunnels remained leading into it from above ground, many of the entrances blocked off. The general populace had no idea there was even an entire labyrinth of cave-like dwellings spiraling beneath them, and people who lived in the darkness for days on end without even a speck of sunlight.

Knowing the repercussions that would arise if a man of his status were caught strolling inside this blatantly illegal area, he’d strapped on a mask that covered the majority of his face and made sure to don a hat and shapeless, worn (but clean) clothing during forays. In the upper city of bright sun and brighter, sunnier people, he would have stuck out like a leper. Fortunately, in the Underground there were enough shady characters that wandered around in the exact kind of outfits he wore.

The first time he’d come back, he’d spent only a few, precious minutes to slowly breathe in the turgid air, his eyes becoming accustomed again to the dim artificial light. He’d backed out almost immediately after arrival. But he’d felt as though he were in a place where absolutely no one’s eyes were on him for the first time in a long time, and knew he’d be back before long. How ironic it was, when he thought about it, that he would taste the first bit of true comfort he’d had in a decade, from this hellish place that he’d desperately left at eighteen years of age. Hadn’t looked back once. But now, it welcomed him back into its darkness, enticing whispers emanating from within its desiccated depths. _Come back, and dwell free from the confines of peace._

Months had passed between those first, clandestine visits; in the beginning he’d only ventured back when he absolutely felt like he could bear no more on the surface. But as time passed, more often his nights were spent beneath the surface. At first just cautious strolls, gradually a casual drink in the seedy taverns. One night, he’d even spent a few hours with a couple of grizzled, forgotten veterans of the war, missing eyes and limbs (checking numerous times to make sure his hat and mask thoroughly concealed him), reminiscing about the days when everything had blurred into one long, bloody haze. He told himself he didn’t – couldn’t – _miss_ the past… but everything had seemed a lot simpler then. Surer.

But two years on, the magic was ebbing away. Too many nights of leaning against half-crumbled walls of bars, enough alcohol in his system to sedate two grown men. Encounter after encounter with the same, suspicious types of figures shrouded in the stink of cheap tobacco. Too many invitations from the manicured claws of this or that pleasure hall. Above ground, Underground, what was the difference, really? One was manicured and the other was a pile of horse shit, but it didn’t change the fact that both were equally meaningless. He was slowly beginning to realize with a muted sense of horror, that he’d been deluding himself for the past two years.

But right now, there was something going on. Waves of muffled sound, emanating from even further below ground.

He began to smell his surroundings before he could see it, as he continued making his way down the rusty long-winding staircase. The stairs themselves were made of old wood and creaked loudly beneath his feet, and in the surrounding dark he thought that it wouldn’t be so uncommon for a person to slip and plummet to the bottom, particularly if he had a bottle of brandy inside him as most of the residents of the Underground were likely to have. The surface of the stairs was sticky, and the walls were likely to be stained and pitted – thank god he couldn’t see them. Cleanliness was the one thing that Levi held on to religiously, and it had taken a lot for him to overcome his initial distaste for the shambles of the Underground, and even more effort for him to not drag down his entire closet of cleaning supplies and unleash himself on the filthy streets.

But at the moment curiosity burned brighter than his horror of unclean surroundings, and he continued resolutely to climb down the stairs. Buried this far underground, whatever activity was happening was definitely something illegal. Even though he was still only halfway, the sound was growing larger and larger with every step he took. He could make out yelling. Cheering.

Finally reaching the bottom, he gripped the rotting handle of the entrance door and yanked it open.

A roaring blast of sound pushed out of the room and thoroughly engulfed him. The sudden explosion of noise and light pushed out of the room with such force, the blaring cacophony of color and frenzied movements blinding him for a moment. He stood stiffy at the entrance, eyes spinning around, trying to make sense of the situation.

There was a horde of roaring men, spittle flying out of their mouths as they exuberantly sloshed their spirits over one other. Drunk on alcohol and on each other, animal energy pounded into the walls and whipped the inhabitants into a frenzy. As he looked around, he could see that it was a large, dingy space, centered around a makeshift platform cornered off with ropes. Dozens of men were crammed in the room, pushing, shoving, hollering at each other. He saw that most of them had fistfuls of grubby notes in their hands, and dirty coins were scattered on the ground. The majority of them, as well, held circular objects in their hand – he looked closer and saw that they resembled red paddles, the sort to play childish games with. Drunken fist fights were breaking out, small groups forming half circles as they egged the impromptu fighters on.

The door on the opposite side of the room loudly banged open. A small group of people began to enter the room, and the crowd began to cease their individual actions and turn their focus towards the people making their way through. He could feel the literal ripple of anticipation that ran through them.

Levi was, admittedly, short. Therefore he could barely see as the group began to make their way throughout the crowd, but he saw the men around him straightening to attention, the small fights that had broken out were ceasing. The screaming men parted in unison, letting the group into the center of the room. To the platform.

Inside the shoddy ring climbed in two figures from opposite ends. And Levi, being able to see them properly for the first time, could see that they were an extraordinary looking pair.

The one in the red corner was huge, a behemoth of a man. Muscles on top of muscles flexed through his exposed parts of his torso, covered with various inkings and bare skin hardly visible. His shock of dyed red hair was closely cropped to his head, which looked unnaturally small placed on top of his stupendously ripped body. His face was elaborately made up, eyes exaggerated in kohl, thick streaks of red smeared underneath in jagged double lines. Dangerous-looking piercings – heavy pikes, spiny wheels – were studded all over his face and ears. His eyes were close-set, gleaming little black lights, mean and merciless. He looked as though he could snap the backs of anyone in this room with one hand and would hardly bat an eye while doing it. As he began to slope around the narrow ring and gesture violently towards the crowd, they began to cheer, throwing their fists up and yelling out his name in adulation.

“Fuck yeeeaaahhhhh! Tank!”

“Kill ‘em! Kill ‘em all tonight!”

“Tank! Taaaaank! Take that son of a bitch apart!”

Presumably, the son of a bitch was the other figure who was standing in the opposite blue corner. Levi looked towards the unfortunate soul who stood quietly, doing nothing of the kind of crowd-pleasing that his opponent was reveling in. He was in every way the opposite of the Goliath that stood in the same square as he. The man was clad in a pair of simple black pants, chest similarly exposed as the Tank’s. Though the bigger man had barely an inch of visible skin, this one was unblemished, unmarked, skin tanned smooth and stretched tight against lean abs. Scruffy dark hair sat on top of his head. But Levi couldn’t make out his face. The figure’s eyes were obscured by his spilling locks, and the lower half of his face was covered in a painted mask.

Levi made his way inwards, squeezing his way through the crowds and coming to the front (elbowing a few drunken idiots out the way). He was now sufficiently close enough to see the details of that mask.

It was grotesque. The leather was painted in a wide, exaggerated maw, an unnatural number of jagged teeth painted tombstone-like on the black surface. It was as hideous as a demonic creature, summoned from the depths of hell to be unleashed against mankind. The face was a grinning harbinger of death.

There was a palpable sense of hostility that radiated from the man, and on his own he was tall and looked strong, if a bit wiry. Still, he looked like a fragile doll next to the roaring, blustering, gargantuan man Tank. The crowd took immense pleasure in this, catcalls and whistles erupting.

“Whoooo! Hey, sexy! Where you going after this?”

“I’m gonna give it to you goooooooooood – ”

The Tank guffawed loudly; he lolled his tongue and made lewd gestures towards his opponent, but the masked man simply ignored them all, taking out a roll of bandages from his back pocket and wrapping them around both forearms. He clapped his hands with white powder, thoroughly coating his fingers.

Up on the ring jumped in a third figure, a tall young man with a mop of sandy hair. In his hands were held two paddles, one of them red like the ones the rest of the men held, the other a bright blue. He was dressed simply but entered with such authority that the crowds momentarily quieted their screeching.

The man smiled, and opened his mouth wide.

“Gentlemen! Welcomeeee to the monthly all-out brawl!” He shouted exuberantly. The group hooted back in excitement. “Tonight, we go back to basics! No weapons, no shields, no armor! We celebrate the old-fashioned _art of the fight_!”

At his last statement, a number of people in the audience groaned. “Fuck that!” shouted one. “We want knives! We want to see blood!” “Yeah!” slurred another. “I wanna see Tank gut that little bitch like a pig!”

Jeers of disapproval began echoing, and the referee raised his hands.

“Now, gentlemen,” he said smoothly, as if mock-soothing a group of disgruntled children. “No weapons, no shields, no armor – does not mean _no blood_.” His eyes twinkled. “After all, our reigning champion Red Tank (and here Levi snorted, as a row of red tanks were what he had commandeered to rain heavy artillery upon the final flanks of the enemy armies during the days of war – clearly the image had remained as a symbol of brute strength to this day) has a history of taking apart whole opponents with his bare hands…” he paused. “Or did all you bastards already forget what happened to the unfortunate _Unbreakable Beast_?!”

At this, the spectators erupted in laughter and the Tank showily flexed his muscles. Levi grimaced as the man mimicked ripping apart limbs. He didn’t need an imagination to guess what had happened to the ironically-named Unbreakable Beast.

“And now, to introduce the stars of the evening!” shouted the referee. “In the red corner – the man needing no introduction! Sixth time monthly brawl champion, two-time all-star death match reigning king, the one, _the only_ , RED TAAAAAAAAAANK!”

Eruptions of cheers. One dedicated fan ripped open his shirt to display the massive, red-streaked tattoo he had gotten of his hero. Levi was getting extremely irritated by all the posturing and yelling, but he had to admit that he was interested by the scene unfolding in front of him, and this so-called fight hadn’t even started yet.

“In the blue corner!” – cue boos and whistling – “We have the latest newcomer here to try his luck against the reigning champ! Straight from the alleys of the Underground, I give youuuuuuu!” He paused for dramatic effect.

“ _THE ROGUE TITAN_!”

 

For the first time, the man called the Rogue Titan lifted his head and acknowledged the room, his head turning this way and that as he took in the jeering mobs. There was no sign of recognition of the crowd from him; he still stood nonchalantly and somewhat arrogantly in his corner, making no noise.

“The bet stands at 1 in 60, in favour of the Red Tank!” Shouted the referee. More whistles. “Bet with the champion, and win with ease!” He raised his own red paddle. “But bet against the house – and take a risk, gentlemen – and _win big_!” He raised the blue. Cue boos.

The referee raised both paddles in the air. “Attention! Three… two… one! AAAAAAAAAND! _FIGHT_!”

The crowd became even more rowdy, Levi could hear several “KILL HIM! TANK, KILL HIM!” from all corners of the room. The fighters began to circle each other – sizing each other up, showing off to the audience. The Tank, still confident, glowered and hulked menacingly at the figure in front of him. The smaller man seemed to show no outward sign of fear, and as the seconds ticked by and the tension ratcheted up, Levi could see the Tank growing angry.

“’m gonna rip you apart,” he bellowed in a voice like grating metal. “Peel your pretty skin off while you watch.”

The masked man said nothing for a second. Then he laughed.

The sound reverberated throatily behind his mask, and the crowd drew in a collective breath. The Red Tank howled and rushed forward.

With his first lunge, he sprang and hooked a powerful left punch to his opponent. There was enough force behind the movement to shatter bones. The Titan, swerving into action, nimbly avoided the punch as he skipped several steps back. The Tank moved forward again, his huge body careening towards his opponent with momentum. The man was undoubtedly a seasoned, deadly fighter. He began to rapidly throw punches, a hit here, a double strike there, seeking blood. The crowd roared their approval. He continued jab after jab, but his opponent made no moves to counteract – simply defended. The Titan raised his forearms for protection, skipped a few steps back, avoided a potentially life-ending swipe to his head.

In a fight like this, each second stretches out as a minute, each minute, an hour. The crowd was growing angry and so was the Tank, as the opponent simply side-stepped, dodged, defended but never made so much as a single attack. The Tank especially was howling mad that he had not yet been able to catch and crush his puny opponent to a bloody pulp by this point.

The masked fighter ducked down and weaved out of the way as Tank’s muscled arm careened towards his head, but this time, Tank was ready. His powerful leg kicked out and his booted foot landed a direct hit on the unprotected left flank of the masked fighter.

A loud sound of impact rang clear and Levi was close enough to see the sudden strain of the smaller man’s body, the muffled _mmph_ of pain that hissed out of his mouth. He staggered, lost his balance. The Tank took the god-given opportunity and flung back his arm, and in a powerful move, drove it deep into his opponent’s stomach.

The masked fighter fairly ricocheted backwards, and the ropes around the ring snapped taut as he crashed into them. The man fell to a heap on the floor, mere inches away from Levi. Levi could hear the rattled breathing, and saw a thin trickle of blood that had begun to flow down under the edge of the mask.

For a moment, Levi felt an intense pity as he unconsciously considered reaching out and pulling the man out of harm’s way. For although the fighter was now shakily trying to get on all fours, the Tank was looming forward, looking as though Christmas had come early. The masked man looked up and, seeing the advancing steps of Tank, made an effort to crawl away from the incoming danger. No such luck. The Tank’s spade-like hands snapped out and clapped the fighter on either side of his head, gripped it and lifted his whole body up. He looked more like a doll than ever. A demented smile of pleasure was stretched out across Tank’s face, and the crowd was _screaming_ with delight, going wild.

“Now,” he said, leering at the stilling body of the man. “Which part of you goes first?”

The audience began to chant – “Head! Legs! Arms!” The man with the tattoo on his chest slobbered all over the edge of the ring – “eyeballs, Tank! Squeeze out his eyeballs first!”

The Red Tank grinned. “Let’s start with those, then.”

Levi thought he had seen enough at this point, and there was no point in staying around for the inevitable dismemberment of a street rat who had clearly been in way over his head.

The Tank’s smile stretched wider, and his fingers crept closer to their destination. The crowd was beside themselves with glee. The smaller man seemed to be utterly defeated, hanging still like a rag doll. But just as Levi was about to turn away in disgust –

 

The Rogue Titan suddenly blurred into motion. His hands shot up and slapped over the palms of doom that still gripped his head, and he swung mightily forward. Before the Tank could react, the Titan’s feet were rapidly running up the surface of the giant’s torso, and suddenly, his right leg was in the air, high above the Tank’s head. In the space of a second where Levi drew in a breath of surprise, the Titan slammed the heel of his foot down, right into the vulnerable stretch of bone and muscle where cords of shoulder met neck. The loud _crunch_ rang through the room.

The Tank grew still. His eyes fluttered. His hands loosened their grip. The Rogue Titan slipped out of his grasp and dropped to the floor, straightening with a labored wheeze. The Red Tank swayed, then fell on one knee.

Levi couldn’t help it. Even he hadn’t expected this sudden turn of events. He raised the hood of his hat higher on his head, his view now completely unhindered.

The Rogue Titan positioned his arms in a fighting stance, then drew back his right – and in a final move smashed it straight into the face of the Red Tank.

Blood sprayed out of the man’s broken nose, teeth loosened and several facial piercings flew through the air. One landed next to Levi in a small puddle of red. The Tank’s spine arched backwards in almost slow motion – and with a final thump, he sprawled out square on his back on the floor of the ring. He was still.

 

The crowd couldn’t believe it. They gasped as they fell into silence. Variations of the phrase “oh shit” could be heard echoing around the room. And as the winning fighter straightened himself up, shakily wiped the blood still streaming underneath his mask and got to his feet, the crowd – slowly coming to and realizing just what the fuck they had witnessed – started to scream. It started with one drunk man, hollering – “Yeah! Titan! You killed him!” – and the others, swept along in the violent euphoria, began to shout in admiration for the man they had casually dismissed as a non-competitor from the beginning.

The Rogue Titan ripped off his mask and let out a ragged howl of victory, an angry sound that brutally ripped from his throat. He thrust his head back, the rush of adrenaline violently racking through his body. The crowd now sounded as one – to their new hero, they roared their approval. It was electrifying.

The man turned abruptly back to the still body of his opponent on the ground, and before anybody could react, he strode over and stood over him. With a mighty heave – really, it should have been physically impossible – he’d lifted the giant bodily off the ground. His audience went wild. He threw the Goliath out of the ring; the knocked-out man smashed into the concrete walls and crumpled into a heap.

Levi would have snorted at this clumsy show of dominance, by the trembling of exhaustion that now overtook the fighter’s limbs. In any other circumstance he would have been absolutely appalled and disgusted at the brutish street fight. Impressive as the smaller man’s actions had been, it was rag-tag, a show of desperation and undisciplined moves; were he to have caught his men brawling in similar fashion during his days as captain, he would have immediately banished them to month-long stable duties.

But he wasn’t feeling any of those customary emotions. He was feeling nothing at all, except an indescribable sensation as all thoughts were blanked from his mind. The Rogue Titan was turned towards him now, unmasked, and Levi could see at last that the man, this beast that had taken down a mountain – was no more than a mere  _kid._

At the oldest estimation he was still in his late teens, and his smooth, unlined visage matched the ripe leanness of his body. Triumph and wild bloodlust stormed in the depths of his virulent green eyes. He was a vicious, savage thing of young beauty, and Levi couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Coolly, the brunette’s eyes began sweep through the crowd. Youthful indolence now settled on his form as he was reveled in the crowd’s adoration. His gaze landed on Levi.

At first the teen seemed startled as he locked eyes with the man standing below him, his shoulders lifting slightly up and eyebrows raising. As the gaze prolonged, however – Levi had all but forgotten that his hood lay half off his head and green eyes met grey unobstructed – the younger man’s mouth suddenly twisted into an unreadable smile, a slight and enigmatic lifting of lips.

The Rogue Titan raised his arms, and staring straight at Levi made a military salute, his right arm curved in front, left arm going back. His curled fist thumped hollowly at the spot where his heart lay beating underneath.

Levi stood unmoving. Unable to comprehend what the brunette had meant by the mocking gesture. With a final glare, the Rogue Titan turned his back and hopped out of the ring on the opposite side. He made his way through the crowds who were parting as shoals of fish, desperately reaching their hands towards the newly crowned hero.

 

* * *

 

IT WAS ALL A LITTLE HAZY after that. Somehow, Levi pushed himself through the room and made his way back up the treacherous stairs and down the darkened alleys. He made his way out eventually from the Underground, mind still spinning with what he had seen.

Above ground, it was raining hard, sheets of rain lashing down from the night skies. He leaned back against the wall of the exit he had just come out of, letting the rain wash over him. He didn’t care that it was plastering down his dark hair, now clumped and swirled around his pale brow. Didn’t even care for the sudden freezing cold, icy water soaking through his garments and exposing him to teeth-chattering chill. There was the strangest ringing in his ears and his grey eyes gleamed with a light that hadn’t been in them for ten years.

Levi drew in a long, shuddering breath.


End file.
